Colour, curry and children - the wonders of India

Before i start -Time for a apology. Sorry for the not blogging in a while! Got a few half done blogs stored away... Look out for them when I finally finish and stick em on here! 

^how cute is this!? 

So I am currently in India! I arrived with a team from Queen Ethelburga's College (a school I went to a long time ago- feels like a ago lifetime now). Staying with these guys was lovelyy! Bits of drama, illness and stupid stuff but overall it was nice to be around QE people again. 

(5 years ago and now. Not sure I look that different - i certainly havent grown!) 

When we arrived in the orpheanage we were greeted with music, flower necklaces, petals thrown on us, the kids singing and hugging us. Was so cute! The orphenage is in a place called vellatur which is in rural Southern India. 

While the QE lot were here I've been super busy! I've been made the 'communications director' at the orphanage (can I put that on my cv?) I have been working at 6am to move sand and rocks onto the first floor of the school to make cement for the roof beams (lots of stairs with heavy stuff - every day has been leg day). Managed to get back in the classroom some afternoons which is great. We painted the playground which resulted in the team painting each other too... 

Playing with the kids at the orphanage is a job in itself. They have so much energy and the heat/humidity seems to suck all energy out of me! 

Lots of work! (Sorry for poor photo quality) 

The kids here are mischievous, cute and insanely happy that I'm here. They love cuddles and they really want me to remember their names (which is a struggle with 150 of them and only one me). It's also great to see how proud they are to be Christian (and how excited they were when I told them I was a Christian too!). They are so loud! 

^cute cute cuteee 

Managed to get myself a beautiful sari! (Sorry for the terrible photos...) The food here has been so good! Spicy...but tasty :)  

So the QE lot left a couple of days ago and I've got a week of bits of bobs to do  before a bunch of americans arrive here.

Look out for more! 

Faces of The Gambia

What I'm going to try and do is show you some or my favourite photos of people that I've taken and give you a bit of background info... Just puts the photos in context. People here are so lively.Their personalities are as colourful as their dresses and sometimes a photo doesn't tell the story fully.

This is my smallest Gambian sister. She is 11 months old and is so cute! She loves cuddles with me and laughs alot when I put her on my shoulders. 

Okay. So this cheeky chappy. Her name is Lauren and she is the definition of crazy. She is nearly three years old and lives in the house I'm staying in. She loves to be picked up and likes high fives. She is also the biggest daddy girl I have ever met. 

This is a woman who I met at the fish market during my second month here. She saw me and wanted me to sit with her. We tried to talk but my Mandinka is horrifc and her English wasn't good but she had a infectious smile. She loved it when I showed her some pictures I had on my camera, especially photos of my brother and sister. 

This wonderful lady i met at the womans garden project. She was so lovely despite having to keep on working hard. She also showed us how they draw water from the well...its hard! 

This is my favourite photo ive taken in The Gambia. Full of colour and this girls smile is beautiful. This was taken at the naming cermony at the village. Amazing day and experience. The Gambian smiles never fail to blow me away. 

Met this woman at a naming cermony I attended. She loved the camera and couldn't stop laughing. Loved her big Gambian smile. She loved my Gambian dress and told me I had good taste which was lovely of her.  

This is a kid I met on the beach. I gave her a pancake ball and she became my best friend. She held my hand and got a piggy back rides. Was insanely cute. Wanted to take her home with me! 

Met this woman at a village I visited this week. She showed me around the village and was really lovely. Her name was Kaddy (just like my Gambian mother at the house). I love the women here. They treat visitors like daughters and it make you included with their culture which is great. They love getting you to try things like help prepare meals or get water from the pump. 

Now this is Fatou. She is one of the children from my class. She is adorable. She really struggles in school but is unbelievably grateful for any extra help she recieves. She is one child that I really hope I have made an impact on. 

Finally here is a picture of a puppy... He was cute so had to snap a wee pic :) 

Less than 10 days in The Gambia now !! 

The art of gratefulness.

Recently I've been thinking about how much I have to be grateful for. This past year has presented me with so many opportunities. 

Admittedly I had to be bed bound and very ill to have the time to think about this subject properly. {Feeling better now though after momentarily feeling like death put in a oven.}

Firstly out here in the Gambia I have so many things to admire in my day-to-day life. I love watching the strong women working. Carrying buckets on there heads and babies secured on their back with a scarf. {Too cuttteeee.}

It's great seeing the men at the road side selling the coconuts I adore. I get excited by the busy markets and especially the fish market. The fish market is full of life and colour. The boats are beautifully painted. The kids play and help the adults. Also, i love the doughy balls they sell there. A brilliant snack. {Delicious! I have far too many when I visit...}

I love the kids making toys out of absolutly nothing. Most kids at my school play games with socks and shoes. Some of the older girls sing and make music with old tins. It's really beautiful to watch. The power of play doesn't have a price tag. 

I am proud to be a teacher here. The kids are inspiring in ways I cannot even begin to put into words.

I'm overhelmed by the fact I'm in a home that makes me feel like I belong. I enjoy eating as a family from one big bowl while cross legged on the floor. Learning how to cook african dishes, helping in the garden and looking after the kids. It's fantastic and I am so happy to be here. {Kaddy really is my Gambian mummy}

This past year has been really good. I feel closer to my family than I ever have. Especially my mum, sister, gran sandra and granpa don. I realise how lucky i am to have so many people who love me and look out for me. 

(Please ignore my face in the above photo)

I have a diagnosis for my special hand which was brilliant. {Cheers NHS it took you a year but you finally got there.}

I am grateful for my education. {Like im going to uni in September...crazy!}

I love my friends who stick by me even when I am in a different continent. 

I'm so excited for what the future has to hold. I don't know what is going to happen but no matter what I am going to be forever grateful. 

I want live life to the fullest. No regrets. If I have learned one thing from being in The Gambia is the how important it is to smile. 

Ps, sorry for lack of blogs recently. Been busy and then ill. 

My wee grade three class

Grade three is a handful to say the least. Thirty six kids in one class is something you just would not get in the UK. The classrooms here are very basic. A black board, a cupboard for textbooks and metal benches with metal tables attached. There are dirty white walls with some handwritten posters that were put on the wall with PVA glue and are half hanging off the wall.  

(The boys never like to smile...) 

The kids here are great. Full of energy. They LOVE to sing and dance! Some of the best times with my class has been the last half hour of their friday class where we have a singing and dancing session. I even taught them the 'I like the flowers' song. Great fun. In lessons it is cute because they love to be picked to answer a question (they get even more excited if I ask them to write the answer on the board!). They will throw their hands in the hair all saying 'teacher teacher - teacher teacher!' (No matter how many times I have told them that I only want hands up) 

Walking about the school grounds during break is lovely. They are all playing. Football is very popular here (often with 50+ kids playing in one very disorganised looking game). They also play dodgeball (though this tends to be played with rolled up socks or a shoe instead of a ball), a skipping game is played by the girls alot (its hard to describe and I've never seen anything like it in the UK) and they like bottle games. Some of the older kids have tins and various other bits that they use to make music. They sing and dance along and it is so great to watch! 

Here it is still acceptable to hit a child or call them stupid. This has been a big struggle for me. With such a big class when I'm the sole teacher I find that whenever I turn my back to help someone a small fight breaks out. This is because they feel they get away with it as a stern telling off or asking someone to stand outside is not as bad as a small bit of garden hose whacked across their palms. It is a difficult situation I feel like I am handling it well though. 

A big problem with the schools here is a lack of understanding for children who are struggling. Instead of giving the kids who struggle extra help they will just give up on them completely and say they are 'not serious about school' or they are simply 'stupid'. This is a real shame and thats why when I'm with my class I try so hard to make sure all the children are learning. Not just the children who have a greater understanding of the subject. 

Despite these challenges I am loving teaching. I love getting to know the kids and I'm learning so much here. I just hope that I make some kind of difference for the school and the kids. One can only pray. 

My school and our problem

Being a teacher is a tough job in any country (I have witnessed my mum slave over making class materials and marking in the UK). Being a teacher in a country when your only resources are textbooks that often aren't correct and a blackboard it can be quite daunting. 

My school is called Bakau Newtown Lower Basic School. It has 2245 pupils in total. It is a free school and allows children of any religon and background to join. The school simply do not have the staff or classrooms to accommodate all the children at once so they are spilt into the morning shift and afternoon shift. The morning shift has 1450 kids and runs from 8:30 to 14:00 (apart on fridays when they finish at 11:40). The afternoon shift has around 800 pupils and runs from 14:00-20:00. Each class has around 35-45 pupils in. Its a handful to say the least. 

Now, I'm going to jump straight into one of the big problems we face in the school. The water supply to the school is not reliable. The pipe is too small and gives us only enough to water for two small taps for the kids to drink with (even these sometimes don't work). The school has no working toilets and the children go to the loo around the back of the grounds, not far from where they play. This is heartbreaking as we have toilet blocks which are from ARC and Unicef but there is not enough water. To solve this problem the school need to drill a borehole. This is not cheap and the school simply do not have the money to fund this work. I have spoken to the headmistress and people who can do the work. Overall, it will cost around £2000. So, I am starting a fundrasing page (link at the bottom) I would love it if you could share the message, put on bakesales, events or donate. Every little helps (sorry tesco for stealing that). I love this school and want the kids to be as healthy and happy as possible. 

Next post will be about my wee class and the rewards (and many challenges) of being their teacher. 

Thank you so much for reading.

Justgiving page its at the sidebar and here's a link- https://www.justgiving.com/Gvstheworld

Ps - I also just made a facebook page :) check it out in my sidebar and like it if you want... ;) 

It means no worries - a reflective piece

Taking a year out of education is the best thing ive ever done. 

In reality since I left school I have learned more than I ever did when sat behind a classroom desk. 

Dumfries, for those who don't know, is a town in Scotland. It's a place for the judgemental. Everyone is out to please others. It's a place where you can be surrounded by people but still feel alone. Don't  get me wrong it is a great place to grow up, I have made amazing friends and memories there. Even though it was a great place to grow up it's an even greater place to leave. I think every teenager feels like that when it comes to their hometown. 

The first thing I did when I left school was throw myself into work. I loved working. I was motivated to get out of bed and do something that reaps rewards at the end of every month. However, it made me realise how much I want a job I could love! I never want to be stuck doing something that doesn't excite me. It shouldn't be about the paycheck. 

The Gambia has been a game changer. I've been more confident than ever. Before coming here I was hyper and bouncy but confident wasn't a word I'd use for myelf. Others translated my bouncy nature as confident but it's never been how i felt. Here i can sing hakuna matata to a thousand kids, dance like crazy with a skirt covered in bottle tops, a wooden hat covered in beads and feel completly at home. Before I would look at a plate of food and judge it before taking a bite. Since I've arrived here I don't even bother asking whats in the dish before digging in. 

Working in the school has been so rewarding. Especially this one girl who couldn't write or read english at all when I arrived and yesterday she wrote out and read to me 'my name is Fatou'. Ah I could of cried at that moment. 

It makes me wonder of what other changes im going to see in myself after all my travelling is over because this is only the beginning. Making a difference is the most rewarding feeling ever. I want to continue to do good work that makes a real change in peoples lives. 

I've really thought about the lifestyle I want when I get home. I want to be healthier, happier and just be me. I want my life to be full of colour. To be surrounded by people who are postive. I don't want negativity in my life anymore. I've turned to God in a way i never have before. I'm constantly praying and looking to his word for guidance. I want this to carry on once i'm baptised. Acts 2:21 says 'and everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved'. Well im finally calling out loud and clear and ive never felt better. Being a lover of God has made me let go of things that don't matter. His love has given me joy and refreshed my heart in a way that paul talks about in the book of Philemon. 

I love being immersed in the culture here. I am ecstatic about the changes in my life that are to come. I try my hardest to help others and be a person I can be proud of. I am praying that I will walk the path that God has laid out for me. 

I know there is going to be hard times but you learn from every bump.